The Impact of National Stereotypes towards Country-of-Origin Images on Purchase Intention: Empirical Evidence from Countries of the Belt and Road Initiative

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the country-of-origin image mediates the effect of national stereotypes along two dimensions of perceived competence and warmth, on consumers’ consumption behaviors, especially in today’s environment, the capricious COVID-19 and the deepening and expanding “The Belt and Road” initiative. Research design, data, and methodology: After collecting 1500 primary data from twelve countries along the 21st - Century Maritime Silk Road, this paper conducts ANOVA and SEM in SPSS25.0 and AMOS 24.0 separately to analyze measurements, structural models, and hypotheses via using 1277 final samples. The mediation results illustrate the asymmetric dominance of the two dimensions of national stereotypes, indicating that the country-of-origin image shows the complementary mediation in the effect of perceived competence on purchase intention; whereas, the country-of-origin image holds the indirect-only mediation in the impact of perceived warmth on purchase intention. The results of the moderation show that the effect of country-of-origin image on purchase intention is more significant for consumers who perceive COVID-19 in China to be of lesser severity than those who believe it to be of higher severity. Based on the paper’s results, some implications for practice and theory are highlighted.